


When Looking for the Lost

by Northisnotup



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Coping, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Kid Fic, PTSD, Pack Feels, braiding hair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northisnotup/pseuds/Northisnotup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott sucks at braiding hair; that`s just one of the many reasons that Shayla McCall hates visiting her much older cousin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Looking for the Lost

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning: PTSD, thoughts of suicide (vague,) talk of death and violence.  
> A little girl dealing with bad coping mechanisms. I don't claim to know anything about psychology or that tis is really how anyone would deal with trauma and loss. This is a work of fiction. 
> 
> Title from 'Pass On,' a poem by Micheal Lee. Some of what Derek said is also from the poem.

Scott sucks at braiding hair; that`s just one of the many reasons that Shayla McCall hates visiting her much older cousin. He`s like, forever old, never wants to play with her or spend any time at all with her but somehow she always gets stuck with him when she`s carted off to Aunt Melissa`s. This summer won`t be so bad, as every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday she has appointments with Dr. Sally. 

And she has decided never to speak again. 

Mom and dad took off to a couples retreat with their own doctor, Dr. Lewis (She thinks Dr. Sally is way better because Shayla gets to use her first name and because Dr. Sally always has the best lollipops. Dr. Lewis doesn`t give out lollipops) and Aunt Melissa is `qualified` to look after her, but whatever. 

There are only 2 other things that make this summer at all good. 1. Aunt Melissa is working all the time, so Scott has to take her everywhere, which means she gets dragged to hang out with his friends. (When did Scott get friends?) But it also means that Shayla gets to see Stiles every day, who is still so super cool and super cute (and why does he even hang out with Scott?) But he is still annoyingly in love with Lydia, who more annoyingly is always there and most annoyingly bring Jackson, who is a butt head. 

2\. The best most absolute wonderful thing about going with Scott to his taekwondo practise or whatever, (they mostly just growl and throw each other into walls, which cool, but also weird) is Derek Hale. He’s like, Scotts fighting boss or something but he is just. So. Cool! He knows how to braid hair, and talks to her like a grown up, and never really cares if she talks back (which she does not.) and tells her how to make Dr. Sally think she’s “Getting Better.” And, and AND he congratulated her on her 3 whole months of silence. (2 weeks and 4 days ago) Shayla is really proud of making the 3 month mark, even more proud of that then she is of her now completed My Little Pony collectible collection which she finished herself and bought herself with her own money. 

Also, Scott hates Derek which is just amazing and Derek is teaching her how to throw a punch. 

“How’d you get that?” He’s pointing to her face, which now bares a wicked looking scar near her hairline. (Derek did a really cool side braid today that says on the back of her head without a hair tie or clip or anything instead of going down her back, like most braids) She lasts under a minute of Not Telling, before breaking down and grabbing her special ‘Communication’ notebook. Dr. Sally got it for her and it is green with purple butterflies and a sparkly pen. She loves it a lot, but doesn’t really use it much, only with Dr. Sally or with Scott because he’ll whine really sadly if she doesn’t try to tell him things; or even worse, sometimes he will deliberately get the wrong ice cream from the store. Because Scott is a poop brain. Also Derek thinks that writing in a book is cheating on her vow of silence, which she kind of agrees with, but Scott got Tiger Tiger ice cream once, and that cannot ever happen again. 

_Tommy Jervis hates me and his (divorced) parents are BOTH on the school council._

She lets him read it, but quickly adds, hoping to cut off a certain train of thought:

_If you say he did it cause he likes me, I’ll kick you. I had 3 stitches._

“You know if you gave him a black eye he can’t tell on you, right? He’d have to admit he got his ass kicked by a girl.” 

Shayla is stunned. Not only is an adult saying she should fight back, but that right there is a fool proof plan. She would hug him, but she’s much too cool for that. Instead she’s up and shadow boxing, weaving and ducking just like she sees guys do on TV. Until Derek pushes her and she ends up hands and knees colliding with a training mat. How could be do that? He was supposed to be so much cooler than Scott! She’s up and throwing a punch before her knees even start to hurt, and nearly spits at how easily he catches it. Never mind that he’s older than even Scott and probably stronger, she really wants to hit him. 

“You think you’re going to land one punch if he can push you down as easily as I can?” He scowl’s at her, grabbing her shoulders and straightening her posture. “Plant your feet and find center.” 

Shayla copies what she’s seen Scott do before trying to hit Derek and nearly beams when she gets an approving nod. He holds up a hand, palm towards her.

“Thumb on the outside, now hit the center of my hand.” She does, with enough force to move it, and for a second she thinks that’s it, before he scowls and makes her set up again. “Hit the center of my hand. If you can’t aim where you’re hitting there is no point to teaching you how to hit at all.” 

It takes her fifteen more minutes of punching and re-setting, having him correct her stance, her follow through, even the way she makes a fist before he’s satisfied. Scott calls her name, but she doesn’t spare him a second, Stiles calls, and she wants to look, but can’t tear her eyes away from where Derek has them held.

“Go home, do five push ups, rest for ten minutes and do five more, and again in the morning before Scott beings you here. You’ll start getting stronger.” She nods, and he leans in to rest a hand on her shoulder. Then he’s gone. He doesn’t speak to anyone or help put anything away. Shayla is left with the weird feeling that she’s done something wrong. 

But she does what he says to anyway. When she’s in her room after Scott and Stiles have taken her for milkshakes, after Scott has tried to grill her about today, impress that she shouldn’t be letting Derek do, whatever… she spends more of his ranting watching Stiles anyway. She plants her palms on the scratchy carpet and slowly lowers her body, pushing back up, and lowering. She gets three done before her arms give out on her. Before she’s panting, lungs too tight and arms feeling weak. She ends up staying awake an hour after bed time, but she gets her ten push ups done. It doesn’t matter what Scott says, and Derek isn’t even here to see and it’s not like she can tell him tomorrow, but Shayla lets herself feel pride. At 10, she is a scrawny Latina girl with a Scottish last name. Who has bad grades, no sister, and hasn’t spoken for three months and gets pushed around at school; but she is proud of herself, for herself. 

The next morning, Scott tries to do her hair. It’s ugly and knotted and fritzy and gross. Scott looks proud of himself, and Aunt Melissa coos and Shayla wants to scream. Why does Scott have to be the center of everything? Why can’t she have something that excludes him, she already shares blood and a name and a house with him is that not enough? By the time she gets to his practise spot, she has bitten her lips so hard they hurt, and there are tears welling at the corners of her eyes. But she doesn’t want to be a baby. It’s just hair, nothing to cry over. It’s not like someone is dead. So she goes to ‘her’ section of the mat, gets into her stance and practises making fists. Her arms are sore and her face is hot and she is so mad she could burst. 

“Hey, kiddo.” It’s Erica. She’s pretty cool. Erica is at least as strong as Scott and throws him around a lot, and she’s Boyd’s girlfriend so that makes her awesome by association. Boyd brought her some old MLP figures to play with when she first got here. Rarity was missing, but that’s okay. 

Erica purses her red(candy apple red) lips and whistles sharply, hand ghosting over her head, and Shayla can’t hold back the hiccup of upset when the first thing Erica noticed was her stupid, stupid hair! But now she looks panicked, and that’s great. Now she’s scared Erica and Boyd is going to hate her and the only person who will ever look at her again is Scott and-

“Hey, hey, want me to go get Derek?” Erica still looks nervous, but she’s at least trying to smile, holding her hands out but carefully not touching. Shayla can’t speak, and she wouldn’t even if she could, but right now she can’t. So she hiccups again, tries to breathe without sobbing and just nods. 

Derek brings a comb with him, sits her down and begins the long and dumb process of getting all the knots out. He knows to start at the bottom; she doesn’t even have to tell him. She’s still half crying, breathing shaky and really, really mad. And y’know after almost 4 months, she deserves this. 

“How’d you know how to braid?” It’s rough and scratchy and she almost can’t believe it’s her voice, but it comes out steady and that is all that matters. If it shocks Derek, he doesn’t let it show, just continues to comb her hair. For a second, Shayla thinks that he’s going to let her get away with it, not answer and just pretend that it never happened and she hadn’t broken her vow. But then he clears his throat and… oops. She hadn’t really thought that maybe he didn’t like talking either. 

“I had four sisters once. One older, and three younger and three girl cousins and one boy cousin who loved his sister so much he refused to cut his hair. So there was a lot of hair to braid.” Derek sounds like Ricky did when he fell off the top of the jungle gym and hit his stomach over some monkey bars. Out of air and like he has to puke. 

And she shouldn’t press and mom always says that curiosity killed the cat and that she asks too many questions and is rude, but come on! Now she has got to know. She can see Scott flailing out of the corner of her eye, and if she hadn’t been set on asking before, now she was. 

“Had?” 

It takes him another little while and a good chunk of hair to respond. His hands have started to shake, but she’s not going to mention it. 

“Sometimes,” He sounds considering and she knows he’s putting the kid gloves on. She shoves one shoulder back, turning to just glance at him. The look he throws back is enough to know she made her point. “Sometimes, people are bad because they’re bad. And sometimes people are bad while thinking they’re doing good. There was a lady who burned down my house, with everyone in it, because she thought she was doing the right thing.” 

Shayla suddenly feels like wood. Like a puppet, because her lips are moving and sound is coming out but she can’t feel anything. 

“My mom thought she was doing the right thing.” She feels his hands pause, but he lets her continue. “We were giving my sister Jenny a bath. Someone tried to break in, and mom went to phone the cops. We only left her alone for a second. Just a second.” 

He lets out a big gust of air that she feels warm the back of her neck before his hands are on her back, she can’t help but lean into them. This is everything that everyone has ever wanted her to say and she hasn’t because how could they ever know. But he does. 

“And every day you look around and think why couldn’t it have been me, right?” She can barely speak or nod, throat tight and lungs burning. He knows, he does, and she knew it. He sees how bad she is, wanting to go, wanting her sister. Mom would have rather held Jenny and she knows that and she ruined it. Cause she is a ruin-er. 

“My favourite thing about my father, was his hands,” His voice coning from behind her is low and a bit broken. Like how moms was when she said ‘Couples Retreat.’ Like he doesn’t want to speak but if he doesn’t then the words will clog his throat and fuse them together and he’ll never speak again. She knows that feeling.

“He had the kindest hands in the world. One summer, I broke my collar bone and it healed over a nerve. We had to break it three more times to get it to heal right. He held my hand for each and every time.”

Derek took a deep breath, and for a few seconds they just breathed together, him matching his rhythm to hers, before he spoke again.

“After the fire, it felt like nothing would ever be right again. So we left, Laura and I, we took a trip, we travelled all through Europe and while we were in France, I got really badly hurt. I wasn’t healing the way I was supposed to and the only help we could get was in a small village near Normandy. They had one doctor, and when he patched me up, I asked him how long he’d been there. He’d moved there 3 months earlier, on a fluke. He moved there right after the fire, and when he worked, it felt like my father was there. That’s when I knew. When we die, we do not end, we pass on. The very best things about us move on to the people who need them maybe more than we do. I found my father’s kindness in France, and my little sister’s voice in New York.” 

By now, it feels less like struggling to get a breath into her lungs, but more work to get it out. Every exhale stutters and rocks her frame, so much so that Shayla can’t speak. But there’s so much she wants to say, now that she can. How small and pale Jenny looked beneath the water. How she’d just went to get her another toy. How her tiny chest felt when Shayla tried to copy what she saw on TV. How water seeped from her lips, but she still didn’t breathe. 

She starts to fall forward and it’s Scott that collects her in his arms. She’s sobbing, messy and wet into her cousin’s neck, lungs hitching. His hands steady against her back. 

But it’s Isaac who draws her gently away, into the bathroom, where she can throw up without so many people watching. Tears and snot mingling with acid, burning her nose and mouth til there’s nothing left. Isaac with the cute curly hair, who never really met her eyes before. Who talks about his brother, and how loss hurts. It seems like hours before she’s ready to go back out, her body shaking and weak with exhaustion and hurt. Derek just sends her straight home with Scott after, hand resting light and short on her shoulder, just like yesterday. Even as carved out on the inside as she feels, his approval still makes her want to smile. 

Scott carries her home. He makes her hot chocolate, and lies in bed with her, stroking her hair and talking. He says he’s sorry. He didn’t know what to say, or how to say it so he just shut up. She understands the feeling so well she snuggles deeper into his arms and feels gratified when he just holds her all the more tightly. He says he loves her. She thinks he’s mostl asleep when she whispers back an: I love you, too. 

Scott may be a poop brain, but he is her poop brain. Her cousin who kissed her knees when she fell and wrote her every month (Actual real letters so she could work on her writing) and taught her to ride a bicycle. Who stopped writing just before Jenny died and made he feel so angry she ripped every single one of his letters and then cried for an hour because she had nothing left of him. Scott is a Latino guy, with a Scottish last name, who doesn’t have a brother and doesn’t do well in school and gets(got?) pushed around. Shayla feels a fierce sort of love for him, like her heart could beat right out of her chest. He tried to braid her hair.

In the morning, they talk about Derek. About how Scott feels all the time jealous and not as good, which is dumb, cause Derek is like, terrible with everyone but her. Derek feels like someone who knows her. Scott feels like a superhero. Derek taught her to throw a punch, but Scott brought her with him every day, when he could have dropped her off with Ruth. (Little old lady, three doors down, two cats and likes tea. Yuck.) They’re both great, in their own way. He scowls when she tells him though, throat still scratchy from Not Talking. 

“If you two could like, be one person. You would be the perfect person.” She takes a second to drink some juice, hoping it will soothe her throat. He looks like he swallowed a lemon. “You want him to stop treating you like a baby?”

He nods, “But Derek thinks he’s like, the leader of all of us! And he’s kind of bad at it.” 

“So’re you.” She chirps just to see him grin. “But stop treating him like a bad guy and he’ll like you more. He’s not bad, he’s… Wreck it Ralph!”

He looks so confused. Poor Scott, she really needs to take him out more. 

“He’s a ‘bad guy’ yea, but that does not mean he’s a _bad guy_ , you know? You’re Fix it Felix. You’re the good guy, and you’re good at it, but that doesn’t always mean you’re right. Sometimes he’s right.” 

She bites her lips to keep from laughing. Scott looks like she just fixed all the wrongs in the world by comparing him to a cartoon. But she is right. If Derek and Scott were one person, or at least worked like they were, everything in Scott’s life would be much better. 

Surprisingly enough, he takes her advice. Sometimes they sit in the corner all day and talk. Sometimes they yell insults from across the room at each other cause if she and Stiles let them get too close they’ll fight. But it works. It gets better. 

He gets her a gift for her last day. 

“So, you know how I write you a letter every month?” 

“You used to.” He winces, but doesn’t respond to the whine in her voice.

“Well, I’m going to again. And…” He’s a jerk. Let’s her wait until she’s bouncing up and down, fists making grabby hands wanting to know. “So is Derek.” 

Shayla screams and launches herself at him, ‘cause her two fave people are always going to talk to her and she’s leaving but this is the best, best, best, best cousin ever! Scott gives the best hugs. She thinks this is maybe because Derek doesn’t know how hugs work. (She tried twice, once the day after she first talked and yesterday when they said goodbye. He stood awkwardly as she wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed. It kind of felt like hugging a tree) But also because Scott has really long arms that go all the way around. 

“So, are you still going to marry Stiles?” He asks, whispering into her ear as Aunt Melissa hugs her mom and packs the bags. 

Now, Shayla loves Scott maybe more than anything, but he brought this on himself. She thinks of Stiles, who is Scott’s favourite person, and grins. 

“Nope. He’s gonna marry Derek.” There’s the lemon face again, it was Worth it. She is safe a buckled in the car before he can stammer out an answer. 

Best. Summer. Ever.


End file.
